


Um Tubarao, Saltando

by marcicat



Category: Burn Notice, Fast and the Furious Series, I Am Number Four (2011), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-22
Updated: 2011-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-24 21:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcicat/pseuds/marcicat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because the Fast and Furious fandom needs more fluffy love stories.  Except this isn’t really a fluffy love story.  More like a crazy, shark-jumping mess of silliness.  Sorry.  Takes place post-Fast Five, but was written before I watched the movie (so, conceptually, they’ve successfully evaded the law and are in Brazil, but that’s about it).</p><p>Extra Note: James and Rebecca are from the fake movie trailer for 'Deception' that's shown in the (real) movie 'The Holiday.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Um Tubarao, Saltando

**Brian**

Trains were not his favorite way to travel. Too slow when you were trying to get somewhere, too fast when you were racing them for a crossing. Worst, once you were on them, you were trapped, although that really depended on how much damage you were willing to do to get out. Buses, on the other hand -- well, what could he say? He'd watched Speed a few times as a kid. A car would be best, but they were flying under the radar for the moment and he didn't want to push his luck.

"One last job," Dom had said. "And then we disappear, forever."

Bus stations were good for disappearing in. There was always someone willing to draw the eye, and as long as it wasn't him -- well, free entertainment wasn't a bad bonus. Like the pair across the way, arguing to beat the band. They both spoke English, which was unusual enough in the city to have everyone's attention even without the potential for physical violence.

"I cannot believe you picked a non-English speaking country!" the woman said, throwing her hands in the air.

"You told me you speak four languages," the man replied. He had a gun (concealed), which was why Brian had started watching them originally. Just in case they weren't traveling companions by choice.

"Portuguese isn't one of them!"

Brian rolled his eyes behind the anonymity of his sunglasses. As if anyone within earshot was unaware of that particular fact.

The man finally seemed to realize that they had an audience. "Relax," he said easily. "We're on vacation, remember? Stress isn't on the agenda."

The look the woman gave him was 1) priceless -- it reminded him of Mia when Dom tried to manage her, and 2) plenty convincing that whatever the pair was doing, it wasn't vacationing. Most Americans on holiday didn't show up in Sao Paulo armed, after all.

By some coincidence, they wound up on the same bus. All right, it wasn't a coincidence. Brian changed his ticket at the last minute to follow them (and got a highly suspicious look from the woman selling magazines for his trouble). He grinned at her and waved.

Dom said disappear, he was disappearing. Sao Paulo was Dominic's; the rest of them would scatter, mostly further south or overseas (depending on whether they had any IDs that could get them on a plane). His own plan included finding a beach and learning Portuguese. No one had said anything about being bored.

 **Dominic**

He had a car. That was important, and he was allowing it to overshadow the fact that he had essentially nothing _except_ a car. It wasn't even a stolen car (well, mostly not — the woman had given it to him after he'd helped kick her asshole boyfriend to the curb, and he wasn't coming back to claim it any time soon). So he had a car. He had a change of clothes, an ID that would pass as long as no one cared to look too closely, and no cops in the rearview mirror. Housing was... something he was still working on. Sao Paulo was a big city; he'd find the right place eventually.

He idled behind a bus at a red light and stared down the kids on the side of the road. It was clear they were itching for a tourist to come along. Sure, a little snatch and grab was part of the authentic experience, but he was in no mood for games. He told himself it was just the thought of starting over, like that would be enough to erase the feeling of watching everyone walk out of his life again. Telling them to go didn't actually make it hurt less, but it did make it easier to lie to himself.

The kids just nodded at him. Probably 50/50 odds it was because he looked like a scary son of a bitch, versus looking too broke to steal from. Brian said the bruises added character. (Mia wouldn't say anything about them, but he'd found a stash of painkillers wrapped in his spare shirt the morning after she'd left.)

Done with waiting, he passed the bus in a flurry of horns and picked up speed -- only to realize there was nowhere to go. Christ, he had to get a hold of himself. He picked a restaurant by the parking lot; one where at least half the cars looked like someone who knew shit about cars might be taking care of them, and told himself to stop thinking.

He also told himself he was being paranoid when the waitress double-taked when she saw him, but then she said, "Are you Dominic Toretto?"

"Who?" he said. "No, this his table?" He looked around like he might have missed someone with a prior claim to the chair.

The waitress frowned. "You sure?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Yeah."

"Some kids were looking for you," she said. "Or him, I guess. They had a picture. Sure looked like you." She didn't seem too convinced either way. He took his order to go.

 **Brian**

It wasn’t hard to just — keep following them. He didn’t have anywhere he needed to be, after all. The beach plan was flexible. Sure, technically he was on the run, but there were levels to this sort of thing, and right now he was at the low end. The ‘keep your head down, don’t do anything stupid, check for criminal associates and law enforcement backgrounds before making any new friends’ end. Compared to some of the stuff he’d pulled in the past, it should be a cakewalk.

Which didn’t exactly explain how he ended up being held at gunpoint in a gas station bathroom. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said carefully.

“So you _weren’t_ following us?”

Ah. “No. I mean, I was, but only because you looked like you might need help.” He tried to sound sincere, but probably wasn’t selling it too well,

based on the guy’s expression. He figured it was still better than the truth, which was that he’d been following them out of boredom. The adrenaline rush was a hell of a high to come down from.

The door cracked open, and the woman slipped in. She gave Brian a brief glance before dismissing him entirely and focusing on the other man. “How long is this going to take? You’re starting to draw a crowd.”

The man swore — in Portuguese, Brian noticed — and waved the gun again. “What’s your name?” he said.

“Brian, what’s yours?” “Your _last_ name.”

“Why, are you going to google me from the toilet? No thanks,” Brian said. If they were worried about attracting attention, they weren’t going to shoot him in a restroom. The gun didn’t even have a silencer. He inched towards the sink. “Look, how about we all get out of here; we could take this up later? You don’t want to leave a body in here.”

“What do you suggest? They’ll be watching us.”

“There’s only just so many things three people can get up to in a public restroom,” Brian said. They both looked at him blankly. Was he really going to have to spell this out? What kind of criminals were they?

“Drugs, violence, sex?” Seemed like a pretty basic set to him. “Shooting me’s going to get a lot more attention than anyone wants, and I don’t have any drugs.”

“I am _not_ having sex with you,” the woman said.

He grinned at her. “Obviously. We just want it to look that way. Can you put your hair down?” He stripped his own tee off and put it back on inside out, turning towards the other guy. “Put your gun away,” he said. “Give her your top shirt.”

Two minutes later, they stumbled and giggled their way past a bored-looking audience, easy as could be.

 **Dominic**

He’d slept in worse places. Prison. Coach class. Listening to the neighbors scream at each other in their yard. Sleeping in the car wasn’t even in the top twenty. _Trying_ to sleep in his car while a mugging went down ten feet away? Different story.

He stepped out of the car and flipped the safety off his gun at the same time. “Hey,” he said. “Is there a problem here?”

It was hard to say who looked more surprised. The mugger instantly put his hands up, knife glinting in the dim light. Dom glared. “Scram.” The mugger ran.

He found himself the focus of two brilliant smiles. “Thanks!” one of them said. Two girls, neither looked old enough even to vote, wandering around the street at night? They made ‘em crazy here in Brazil.

“You speak English?” the second one asked, and he nodded. “Thank you.”

“We could have handled it,” the first one said. The second one handed off what looked like a bag of groceries.

“ _We_ are glad you stepped in,” she said. “Do you need a place to stay? I’m Paige; this is Jubilee.”

“Were you sleeping in your car? You should totally stay with us. Everett’s sick but we don’t think it’s catching.”

They both lapsed into silence while he stared at them, weighing his options. Option 1: trap. Really convoluted trap involving children and muggers. Evidence for option one wasn’t strong. Option 2: coincidence. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time, to save some perfectly innocent folks from harm, and they just happened to offer him a place to crash. Right. Evidence for option two wasn’t looking good either.

That left option three, which he still hadn’t figured out. “I’ll drive,” he said instead.

On the way, ‘Paige’ offered directions, while ‘Jubilee’ talked rapid-fire into a cell phone. Since she was talking too quietly to eavesdrop, he focused on Paige. “What were you doing out so late at night?”

She pointed out the next left, and said, “We needed groceries, because Everett said he wouldn’t eat anything except chicken soup.” She frowned. “Well, that or beef jerky, but we figured the soup would be better.” And

someone had to stay with him, so that left us to get the groceries. It’s a left up here; you can pull in the side street.”

As an answer, it lacked a certain something. Logic, honesty — take your pick. “We’re here,” he heard Jubilee say, and she snapped the phone shut. Suddenly, he had a weird feeling about this.

 **Brian**

They ended up eating takeout in a motel room that had clearly seen better days. “It seemed completely typical at first,” James said, waving a plastic fork. “Her father was a reclusive scientist, worked for some private think tank, left her something in his will, and bam, armed gunmen tracking her down.”

Brian noticed Rebecca flinched a little on the “bam,” but she was gamely ignoring them by keeping watch. “But?” he asked. He was still a little fuzzy on how James had ended up involved in the first place, other than that he happened to be around when the first attackers showed up.

“Well, I’ve checked all the standard things,” James explained. “Favorite childhood stuffed animal, numbers she was told to memorize, jewelry handed down from her dad’s side of the family — there’s nothing. She never even met the guy.”

“I _can_ hear you,” Rebecca said. “Sorry. What about the will?” Brian asked.

“I know, right? You’d think it would be there; some kind of cryptic code or lockbox or something. But it was just money. Not that it hasn’t been helpful, being on the run and all.”

Brian was honestly starting to think he’d fallen into some sort of bizarro- world. Was everyone in Brazil _crazy_? Still, they’d moved on nicely from threatening to kill him, so it probably wouldn’t hurt to play along. “Maybe she _is_ the secret,” he said.

James just shook his head. “No, I thought of that too, but she’s totally normal. No mutant powers, no alien DNA; she even gets motion sickness.”

 _Alien DNA?_ God, it really was the twilight zone. He tried to think of a non- threatening way to voice his next thought. Failing that, he went for straight up. “Have you considered that _you_ might be the target?”

That got Rebecca’s attention. “If you dragged me halfway across the continent for _no reason_ , I will kill you so dead they will _never_ find the body.”

James frowned. “That doesn’t even make sense,” he said. “Also, why would I be the one they’re after?”

“You carry two guns and kidnap random strangers in gas station bathrooms,” Rebecca told him.

“How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t think one would be enough,” James said. It had the tone of a well-worn argument.

“They’re here,” Rebecca said. “Two cars, looks like three men in each, all armed.” She suddenly sounded very calm, but he could see her knuckles going white on the windowsill.

“Are you sure?” For the first time, Brian wondered if James was winding her up on purpose, to distract her from the apparently very real danger. And if so, was she being played, or playing along?

“Well, they could be women, but I don’t think this is really the time to explore gender stereotypes,” Rebecca snapped.

Definitely playing along. Brian shook his head, even as they were planning a quick escape through the bathroom window. Dom would bust a gut laughing if he ever found out about this.

 **Dominic**

“Brian’s doing _what_?” Han’s voice sounded amused as he repeated. _“He’s with two Americans who’ve got a price on their heads. Looks like mostly bounty hunters.”_

It was like metal filings to a magnet — if Brian O’Connor and trouble were in the same country — hell, the same continent — they’d be irresistibly drawn to each other. Truly, what were the odds he would have fallen in with another set of criminals so fast?

 _“How about you? Everything all right?”_

Dom squinted against the morning glare to check inside. Looked like everyone was still sleeping. “Yeah, fine,” he said. “Han, keep tracking what Brian’s doing. I want to know if he’s getting in over his head.”

Han tactfully refrained from saying that getting in over his head was the only way Brian did anything. _“No problem,”_ he said instead. _“I’ll be in touch.”_

Dom headed back inside, only to stop short. Apparently they were awake — four somber faces stared at him from the kitchen table. Shit. They must have found his record. “You call the cops?” he asked. His keys were already in his pocket; he could be out the door in seconds.

“What? No, of course not.” Everett shook his head emphatically. “It’s not like that.”

There was a tense silence. Dom finally said, “What _is_ it like, then?”

“We want to know what happened to Jesse,” Paige said. Dom headed for the door. “Wait!” Paige hurried after him, putting herself directly in his path. “He was doing a distance learning thing, with our school. We know he died. We just want to remember him better.”

She looked so earnest. And young. And she was lying through her teeth. “Jesse didn’t do school,” Dom said. “And he died in pain and scared out of his mind, and that’s it.”

“Five minutes,” Paige said. “Give us five minutes to explain; I promise you won’t regret it.”

“I already regret it,” he told her. But he sat down at the table anyway. What could he say — he’d always had a soft spot for kids, even pain-in-the- ass teenagers. Especially them, maybe.

“We’re not here on spring break,” Jubilee said. “More like study abroad. Except with hiding out.”

The only one who hadn’t said anything (probably because he was too busy shoveling cereal into his mouth) glared at her.

“What?” she said. “It’s true.”

Everett sighed and took up the explanation. “We go to the Xavier Institute. We’re mutants. Since it’s not exactly uncommon for the school to be attacked, blown up, or taken over by evil mutants, we’re doing a class on

emergency survival. Fleeing, evading authorities, setting up a safe house, that sort of thing.”

“We’re not allowed to call for help,” Paige said. “So they gave us a list of potentially helpful people we might be able to find in our assigned area.”

They all nodded, like this made perfect sense. “And — I was on this list?” More nodding.

“Jesse listed you as an emergency contact when he first signed up, and I guess they cross-referenced the lists.”

It was cute how they thought having the corn-fed southern girl lie to him would be more successful than any of the others. Still, it probably wasn’t _all_ a lie, and he could use a safe place to lay low himself for a few days. “Okay,” he said, with a smile that was in no way meant to be reassuring. “I’m listening.”

 **Brian**

“Dom’s doing what?”

 _“I know, it’s crazy, right? I heard it straight from Tej.”_

Brian shook his head. “Tej is playing you, man. No way is Dom playing babysitter to a bunch of mini-mutants.” Sure, he had a habit of taking in strays, and Jesse’s abilities had been an open secret at the garage, but kids?

 _“I don’t know, I always wondered about that guy.”_

“Stuff it, Rome. Where are you, anyway?”

 _“I am where any self-respecting successful criminal should be,”_ Roman said. There was a lot of background noise, like he was holding the phone away from him. _“Hear that? Sun, sand, and surf. This is the good life, Brian. The question is, where are_ you _?”_

Brian looked around. Parking lot, highway, motel. “I’m — on the road,” he said. “Sort of.”

Roman’s disbelief was practically audible. _“Right. Good luck with that. Send up a flare if you need help, you got that?”_

“Yeah, Rome, I got it.”

 _“Just not before noon. If it’s before noon, call someone else.”_

He laughed. “Yeah, Rome. I got it.” He hung up, but the truth was — he had no idea what he was doing. Like so many things in his life, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He leaned over and banged on the door. “Breakfast ride’s leaving in five — coffee’s calling.”

Rebecca and James came trailing out a few minutes later. Rebecca was wearing James’ shirt again, which — yeah, he wasn’t exactly in any position to judge people on their life choices. Still, he caught her eye and raised his eyebrows. She blushed, but smiled and shrugged. Good enough for him.

“You know, technically this is our car,” James said.

Rebecca dropped her backpack in the front seat. “Technically, you stole it in Columbia.”

Brian shook the keys. “Technically —” He broke off. A black van pulled into the lot. “Get in the car,” he said. “You recognize those guys?”

“They’re not ours,” James said. “Not police, either.”

“In black leather trenchcoats? No, I don’t think so.” He tensed, ready to run towards or away. One of the men pulled out a gun, aimed it at the room at the end of the row. The door exploded inwards.

“Holy shit!”

That was _not_ an ordinary gun. The lightshow coming from the motel room was intense. He couldn’t tell if it was a firefight or a fireworks show. Rebecca was already sliding over to the driver’s seat. “Take the keys,” he told her. “Drive around the back; we’ll meet you.” After a second’s hesitation, he tossed his phone in the car as well. “Give us five minutes, then take off; work your way through my contacts till you get someone on the line. They’ll help you.”

There was a muffled boom, and the entire end of the motel was obscured in smoke. Two people stumbled out of it. Neither of them were in black.

“Or we could just pick them up out here,” Rebecca said.

 **Dominic**

They had a list. An honest to god computer printout list, with instructions and suggestions for a successful “flight to safety.” Complete with school logo on the bottom of the page. So: school assignment. Not a lie.

“What’s the backup plan?” he said, tossing the list down on the table. “What if I turn out to be the bad guy?” (‘Find local help, if necessary,’ he noticed, was number 12 on the page. Not exactly top priority.) It wasn’t a safe house if they couldn’t keep it safe.

Jubilee’s hands blazed with power. “We knock you out, steal your car, and dump your body far enough away so it’s not worth your while to come back.”

The kids all nodded, and then one of them held up a gun. “Or we shoot you.”

“Angelo! Where did you even _get_ a gun?” Angelo — the one who’d been eating cereal — shrugged, and the gun disappeared somewhere. “Rictor.”

More nodding, like that made perfect sense to them. It wasn’t a horrible plan. Depending on how ruthless they were, he thought they might even be able to pull it off. Four on one wasn’t the best odds in a small space — if they were confident he’d be pulling his punches against children, it could work. Only Jubilee seemed to flash her powers around, so that was still a wildcard, but there must be a reason the two girls had gone out alone the night before.

Best of all, the exchange had given him time to skim numbers one through eleven. “That works,” he said. “So you’re on what, number three? When you’re picking up supplies, could you get me a couple packs of gum?”

The nodding stopped. Everett frowned at him. “What?”

Dom was definitely seeing the potential in this situation. He twisted the cap off his water and seriously considered putting his feet up on the table. “Your list there says you’re supposed to be self-sufficient. No skipping ahead and expecting me to do the heavy lifting. You need rescuing, shout for it. Otherwise I’ll just be here, being the local help.”

There was a certain amount of grumbling, but he hadn’t become a wanted fugitive by giving in to whining. They left Jubilee to guard the apartment (which he gave up trying to interpret). She gave him a wide berth, and he headed for the sofa. Perfect opportunity to catch up on a little shuteye.

 **Brian**

Of course it wasn’t that easy. Really, there were times when he seriously missed working with professional criminals. Standing around talking (arguing) in a parking lot _right next_ to the smoldering remains of their motel was not a solid plan. “Hey,” he said, trying to get someone’s — anyone’s — attention.

Nobody even glanced at him. He wasn’t completely sure what they were fighting about; large chunks of it were in high-volume Portuguese. For all he knew, they were talking about where to dump his body, but it seemed unlikely. No guns had been brandished yet. (Though that was only if you were getting technical about a difference between ‘brandishing’ as a threatening ‘I’m going to shoot you now’ maneuver and ‘forceful gesturing’ as a non-specific ‘I’d really like to shoot _something_ right now, but not necessarily you’ action.)

His phone rang, and he flipped it open without checking the number. “Yeah,” he said.

 _“Is that how you greet everyone?”_ came the amused reply.

“Gisele?”

 _“Piece of friendly advice? Get moving sooner rather than later; the policia are already on their way.”_

“Hang on,” he told her. Holding the phone against his shoulder to muffle the speaker, he whistled. _That_ got everyone’s attention. “Everyone in the car,” he said. “Cops are coming; we’re leaving.”

Good news — Rebecca handed the keys back without question. Bad news — he held up the phone to his ear again. “Do I want to know how you know that?”

Gisele laughed. _“Someone’s got to keep an eye on you. Dominic would blow all our covers if you got into trouble.”_

He shook his head even though she couldn’t see him. “No way,” he said. “Dom wouldn’t do that.”

 _“Sure,”_ she said. _“You just keep telling yourself that. You clear?”_

“Yup. Heading west.”

 _“That’s north, honey.”_

Damn. How was she _doing_ that? “Right. Thanks for the heads up. Have a nice day.” He hung up and handed the phone to Rebecca, who’d managed to reclaim shotgun even with the extra passengers. “Pull the SIM card out, would you?”

She passed the pieces back — he pocketed the card and tossed the rest out the window. If Dom wanted to track him he could damn well do it himself. (He was ignoring the fact that he had Tej and Roman feeding him information about Dom. That was different.) “There. Now — we were going to breakfast?”

“Who _are_ you?” The older of the two women from the motel was giving him a suspicious glare. He grinned.

“Ex-cop. Ex-fed. Mostly ex-criminal,” he said. He twisted in the driver’s seat to offer his hand. “Name’s Brian.”

“Eyes on the road,” she snapped. “And we’re going north, not west.”

He turned back around, but met her eyes in the rearview. “Do you want to drive?”

“She can’t drive a stick shift,” the younger woman offered, smiling. She might even still be a teenager; it was hard to judge age on someone covered with motel ash. “Can I drive?”

“No.” Brian and the older woman spoke simultaneously. “Breakfast first,” he added.

 **Dominic**

There was not enough coffee in the _world_ for this conversation. He ran a hand over his head and tried to loom menacingly without actually getting up from the couch. It was a small room; there wasn’t room for anyone else to stand.

“Tell me again what happened.” He’d woken up to a pounding headache, a dozen packs of gum strewn across the tiny table next to him, and a man sitting on the floor across the room. In handcuffs. No note, no kids to be found.

“My name is Michael Westen. I’m looking for my car,” the man said. “Your — roommates took exception to my interest.”

That was about what he’d gotten from the first explanation, too. Somehow, he’d been hoping it would be different the second time around. “Huh.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Westen said, all conversational- like, “I’d like my car back now.”

“It’s not yours.”

“What?”

“I said it’s not yours.” Probably. The man he’d warned off had been older, but — now he was thinking about it — the woman _had_ looked a little squirrelly about the whole thing.

He heard voices in the hall a split second before the door burst open. Angelo and Jubilee were in the lead, and stopped short when they saw him and Westen.

“What? What is it?” The other two stepped around and halted as well. “You’re still here,” Jubilee said. “We weren’t sure you would be.”

It took a minute to decide how to respond to that. He went with the obvious. “Why?”

Angelo shrugged, while the others just avoided looking anywhere close to him. “Well, Jubilee thought you might team up to go rescue kittens from storm drains, but really, it’s because your car is gone.”

He said, “Gone?” and glared at Westen.

Westen looked back and said, “Kittens?” Eventually, the glare worked, or else he just didn’t like his other options (out the window, or getting past five potential hostiles to reach the door). “Probably Fiona stole it back,” he said. “She’s the one who gave it to you, because she’s mad at me. Again. Was there a guy with her? Older, gray hair, hawaiian shirt?”

Dom nodded. “Keep talking.”

“That was Sam,” Westen said. “Good friend, gets on your last nerve when you’re hunting a bounty you don’t want to share.”

One of the kids piped up with, “You’re a bounty hunter?”

“Not exactly. It’s complicated.” There was a pause, like he was checking to see if that was going to be enough. It wasn’t. “Fi’s a bounty hunter. Sometimes. Usually we’re more the helping out kind.”

“You’re hoping to collect the bounty _and_ rescue the target.” He raised an eyebrow. “Bold.”

“Two targets. And the people offering the bounty aren’t exactly the good guys.”

The pieces fell together. “Two targets? Americans?”

Westen frowned. “Said to be. Last I heard they’d picked up a local guide, though.”

Brian. Of course. “He’s not local,” Dom said, and reached for his phone.

 **Brian**

They ate in the car, because they weren’t exactly unrecognizable, and it wasn’t like the caffeine made anyone _less_ jumpy or eager to be on the move. There was something weird about the vibe between James and the newest members of their impromptu group. The older woman kept staring at him — which was awkward, since she was sitting right next to him. James was staring fixedly out the window. Still, they’d both objected when he suggested getting a second vehicle.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have tossed your phone,” Rebecca said suddenly. He looked at her. “Why not?” She shrugged.

“You’re the only one who knows people here who aren’t trying to kill you,” she said. “You said they would help us, before. Back at the motel.”

“I said they’d help _you_ ,” he clarified. “As in, if I was dead, and it was a last request kind of thing.”

“What does that even mean?” The younger girl gave him a dubious look. Her (mom? guardian? traveling companion?) looked like she might be calculating the pros and cons of jump starting the whole ‘if he was dead’

plan herself. But after a minute she went back to staring at James, so he figured he was safe for a while.

“It means we weren’t planning to be pen pals,” he said dryly. “Look, we need to lay low for a while. Do you have any idea how they’re tracking you? Anything we should be looking out for?” There was a thing they could do with a parking garage, if they could find one. But it wouldn’t work if they were being tracked by — how would he know, it could be a psychic bond or something. There were _laser_ guns in his backseat.

“Um. No?” The girl looked at the other woman.

(It would be helpful, he thought, if they’d share their names. But they hadn’t offered, and now it seemed awkward to ask.) The woman nodded, though. “If you see a large black truck, that’s bad. Especially if creatures start coming out.”

Creatures? “Right. Okay. So... no psychic bonds?”

She stared at him. “Why would there be a psychic bond?”

Rebecca twisted in her seat. “Why would there be _creatures_?”

“They’re here,” James said flatly. Brian startled, and tried to remember the last time James had spoken. Not since the motel, he thought.

But sure enough, a black truck pulled out into the line of traffic behind them and started winding its way closer. “Get ready to stop the car,” the woman said. He stared at her in the rearview mirror.

“You have got to be kidding. You want to get out and fight?” “We’re getting out to run. We can escape and evade faster on foot.”

Brian just grinned and revved the engine, just a little. “Trust me,” he said. “You really can’t.”

 **Dominic**

Brian wasn’t answering his phone. “Maybe he’s going through a tunnel,” Jubilee suggested, snapping her gum.

“Maybe he ditched the phone so no one could track him with it.” Everett flinched under the weight of his glare, but gamely added, “That’s what we did.”

On the other side of the room, Westen was probably still trying to get his car back. Based on his expression, it was either going very well or very poorly. Looked like it might take a while either way. Dom looked back at the kids. “I wasn’t tracking his phone.”

The next number he punched in rang just once. Good to know he still had influence with some people, at least. “Brian’s in trouble,” he said.

 _“Well, hello to you to, Miss Mary Sunshine.”_ Roman Pearce’s drawl was just as annoying as he remembered. _“Not exactly hot off the presses news, is it? Brian’s always in trouble.”_

Dom sighed. “Where is he?”

 _“You tracking him on the sly, or is he just not taking your calls? You know, if you two wanted to be in each other’s pockets, you should’ve just moved in together. Would’ve saved the rest of us the work of passing notes.”_ It was official; he was being laughed at.

“Bounty hunter trouble,” he said. Ignoring 95% of what came out of Roman’s mouth was par for the course. “Do you know where he is or not?”

Roman whistled. Rightly so — bounty hunters could be bad for all of them, regardless of who they’d originally been looking for. Their faces weren’t exactly unknown.

 _“Last I heard from him was this morning_. _Said he was on the road.”_

In other words, Roman didn’t know any more than he did. “Keep your ears open,” he said. “Call me if you hear anything.” And because Mia was right, and he cared about these people way too much, he bit off a fast “Be careful” before ending the call with a vicious jab at the keys.

Surveying the room again, daring anyone to make a comment, he said, “I need a police band scanner, a computer, and a fast car, in that order.”

Angelo was up and headed for the door almost instantly. “Neighbor down the hall has a police scanner,” he said. “What are we listening for, besides the obvious?”

Dom wondered what mutant teenagers would consider obvious keywords. “High speed car chase,” he said, and Angelo nodded.

“I’ve got a computer,” Everett volunteered.

He gave the kid a disbelieving glance. “You ditched your phone but kept a computer?”

“It’s new,” Jubilee told him. “Plus it’s pinging its current location as Luxembourg. Come on, Everett, you and me are on car-snatching duty. Paige can hack for him.”

And maybe that’s what she’d been lying about, because corn-fed southern girl could light up a keyboard like nobody he’d seen since Jesse. “Brian’s with at least two other people,” he told her. “Can you get me a number for someone else in that car?”

 **Brian**

As car chases went, this one certainly had some points in its favor. There was only one truck back there, for one thing, with a max speed of probably 90 mph if they were lucky. And the lack of air support — he was definitely enjoying that. Just one-on-one old fashioned driving. He could do it with one eye on the road and one hand tied behind his back.

On the other hand, he’d never tried to do it with four passengers. Between the flinching (Rebecca), the backseat driving (the girl who wouldn’t give her name — it was always the quiet ones), and the staring (James and the woman, which they at least kept between themselves), the tension just kept ratcheting higher.

Finally, James snapped. “ _Yes_ , all right?” he hissed, abandoning his out-the- window glare and turning it on the woman next to him. “Yes, I can hear you. Because you’re shouting at me from a foot away!”

Brian looked at Rebecca. She looked as baffled as he felt. So he hadn’t somehow _missed_ shouting. Okay. Well, always something new with these people.

“Then what are you doing here?” the woman asked. “Why have you abandoned your duty?”

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you,” James said. He leaned around to address the girl. “You — Five, right? How many survivors were there originally?”

She hesitated a long time, but finally said, “Nine.” “And now?” “Six,” she said with more confidence.

James pointed at her and then at the woman between them. “Wrong,” he said. “How many guardians are left? How many chimerae? How many have died for you already?” The girl just shook her head, eyes wide.

“See?” James sat back. “I never counted. _You_ never counted. Did anyone ask for my consent about this so-called duty? No, never. It was all, ‘Can you be a bird? A lizard? Can you be a fucking house cat?’”

The woman winced. “The rules —“

James overrode her simply by talking _louder_. “Oh, Two’s guardian was big on rules. You know where I was when he was hunted down and murdered? In _quarantine,_ like a _pet._ ” He took a breath, but no one jumped in. “Screw your rules; I’m done with them.”

“By masquerading as a human?”

“We’re not actually pets! Humans are hardly the most complicated animals on this planet!”

Brian’s mind jumped back and forth between, “Aliens!” and the thought that this car was _really_ too small for the volume level of their current argument.

“Second truck!” Rebecca said, pointing out the windshield. “Look out!”

He pulled his attention back to the road — sure enough, a second black truck was headed at them from the opposite direction. He U-turned and gunned it back the way they’d come; they could make it to the highway on one of the exits.

“That’s it,” Rebecca said. She pulled out her phone but didn’t immediately make any move to use it.

He glanced over. “What are you doing?”

She looked back at him and her eyes went wide. “Whoa. Don’t panic.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “Just — don’t move.” He froze. At this point, who knew what could be happening? “I’ll just...”

Before he realized what she was doing, she’d slid the SIM card out of his shirt pocket and snapped it into her phone. She passed the phone to the girl behind her (not coincidentally, he was sure, the one furthest away from him). “Start dialing,” she advised. “Skip anyone named Gisele.”

 **Dominic**

“What do you mean, it’s busy? Who could they be calling?”

Paige’s looked frustrated, which made two of them. “I don’t know,” she said. “How would I know that?”

His phone rang. They looked at each other. “No way,” Paige said.

There was no name on the display, just a number. “Hello?” he asked. All he could hear was static.

 _“Is this —“_ static cut through the words.

“This is Toretto,” he said. “Who’s asking?”

The line cleared up, so even though it was muffled, he could heard someone say, _“Which one’s Toretto? Does he like you?”_

He decided it was time to cut to the chase. “Is Brian there? Give him the phone.”

 _“He’s driving,”_ the person on the other end said. Dom rolled his eyes. “He can talk on the phone and drive at the same time.”

There was a pause. _“He doesn’t really have a hand free right now. That’s why I’m calling.”_

That sounded bad. His mind flashed through scenarios — handcuffed to the wheel, injured, being held against his will so they didn’t want him to talk... Then again, it wasn’t Brian’s phone that had called, and they had to have gotten his number somehow. “What’s he doing?” Paige’s wide eyes indicated he’d managed a suitably intimidating tone.

 _“Reloading. Hang on, I just need to —”_

That sounded — better? Worse? Definitely worse, he decided, when the phone cut out entirely.

“I’ve got a location,” Angelo said, bursting in through the apartment door. He was holding something. “And you are not going to _believe_ what they’re —“

“Are those cookies?” Jubilee interrupted, crowding through the door behind him. “Where did those come from?”

“Neighbor,” Angelo told her, offering the plate in her direction.

“Your car’s back too,” Everett said. He looked back and forth between him and Westen. “Whoever’s it is.”

That was enough for him. “Come on; we’re leaving. You get a second car?” Really, he should probably do the responsible thing and try to leave the kids behind. Then again, if you were old enough to steal a car, you were old enough to drive a stolen car. Toretto family saying.

“‘Course we did. It’d probably be good if we didn’t bust it up too bad, though. We didn’t have a chance to get insurance yet.”

He stopped short. “You _bought_ a car?” Jubilee looked shifty, and Everett shrugged. “Technically, our school bought the car. It’s on our ICE card.” Jubilee still looked shifty. He stared at her. “That right?”

“Oh all right,” she said. “I thought we should hang onto our card, just in case. I used Scott’s instead.”

The name meant nothing to him, but the other kids looked a little scandalized. Whatever. Not his problem at the moment. “He gonna come after you for it?” She waved her hand in a sort of ‘maybe, maybe not’ gesture. Good enough. “Great. Let’s go.”

 **Brian**

The car was a total loss. He did feel a little bad about that. They’d made it to the highway only to find themselves boxed in when a third truck showed

up. And yeah, it definitely got worse when the creatures came out. Good news (sort of): there were at least two other people fighting on their side, somewhere in the mess. Bad news: the middle of a shootout wasn’t the best time to come up with a strategy.

“Get down!” someone yelled, and he ducked. An honest-to-god blue fireball sailed past. How any of these people had stayed under the radar, he had no idea.

He was trying to make his way to the edge of the fighting, towards the trucks. It wasn’t like they’d had time to talk about strengths and weaknesses, but he figured most things didn’t like getting hit by a truck.

No more fireballs came his way, which he hoped was a good sign. He’d lost track of James and Rebecca early on, but hopefully they were sticking together. As far as he could tell, the aliens were pretty intent on fighting each other — maybe not worried about collateral damage, but not intentionally targeting the others, either.

“Hey! Psst! Brian!”

It was Rebecca, with a seriously pissed off James right behind her. He veered in their direction. “Are you guys okay?” he asked.

Rebecca just shrugged. “We’re good,” she said. “Toretto wants to talk to you.”

It took a second for those words to parse. “What?”

She waved a phone at him. “Toretto. On the phone. I can’t believe you have a phone book full of fugitives. I’m not sure I believe that ex part of being an ex-criminal anymore.”

“It’s a work in progress,” he told her.

She handed the phone to him with a dubious look. “Sure,” she said. Then again, it turned out _she’d_ been keeping company with an alien shapeshifter, so he was thinking it was a glass houses kind of thing.

“Hello?” he said, putting the phone up to his ear.

 _“Brian?”_

That wasn’t Dom’s voice. “Who is this?” he asked.

 _“Sam Axe. It’s a long story. Where are you?”_

“Where’s Dominic?”

 _“Not a very patient guy, is he? He took off after the kids, looking for you. Cell phones don’t work in the middle of that mess; he left his with me in case Rebecca managed to find you.”_

Dom was there? With _kids_? He officially had no idea what was going on any more. “Right,” he said. “Is there a plan?” One thing you could count on with Dom; there was _always_ a plan. Sometimes it was a stupid plan, but it was always there.

 _“Oh yeah. You might want to be sitting down for this.”_

 **Dominic**

He would have said that only Brian could end up in a situation like this. But based on the scene in front of him, Brian wasn’t the only trouble magnet in the area.

The air shimmered, and a woman appeared to his left. “Duck,” she said. He did, and covered her back while what sounded like a whole fourth of July’s worth of fireworks exploded above their heads.

When it was over, he worked his jaw a couple times to pop his ears. “That should hold us for a few minutes,” the woman said. “You’re not from Lorien.”

“LA,” he told her. “I’m looking for someone. Heard he was here.”

She gave him a considering look. “Want to shoot some bad guys while you’re looking?”

He grinned. “Easy question,” he said.

She called back over her shoulder. “Sam!” A kid who looked like he should be in high school scrambled out from behind a car and ran over.

“Give him your spare gun,” she said.

“It’s point and shoot, really,” the kid said, handing over something that looked more like a movie prop than a weapon. “Have you ever played video games?”

And damn if that didn’t make him feel old. “You ever fired a real gun?” he returned. “I think I can handle it.”

“Shoot anything ugly,” the woman said. He hefted the weapon. “No problem.”

Based on a lot of guessing, they figured they’d probably come up on the opposite side of the fight from Brian. Westen was going around with Fiona, looking to evacuate any lingering civilians. Dom was headed straight through the middle. The kids were nowhere in sight — they’d seemed convinced of their ability to pull off the plan. Hopefully that confidence was warranted.

Whatever the fireworks had done, it was working, because things were (relatively) quiet as he slipped through the debris. He caught a glimpse of the kids at one point, Jubilee waving her hands in the air to demonstrate some point or another to the two women listening. Angelo waved at him and gave a thumbs-up.

He stepped around (another) burned out car, and found himself staring at the barrel of a gun. Make that two guns. “Don’t move,” the man said.

He didn’t. The man’s accent sounded American. “I’m looking for Brian O’Connor,” he said carefully. “Any idea where he is?”

“Come with me.” Not exactly welcoming, but not a no, either.

“Dom!” He felt relief rise up in his chest. Brian looked a little singed around the edges, but otherwise fine as he stepped out into the open.

A woman followed him. “Oh, _he_ knows your last name,” she said. “Of course.”

Brian just laughed, and they met in the middle for a backslapping hug. “Man, is it good to see you. I swear, none of this is my fault.”

He didn’t believe it for a second, but they probably had about three minutes left before it was going to be a really bad idea to be standing around in the open.

“We should probably take cover. Things are about to get exciting.”

 **Epilogue**

Bus stations were good for disappearing in. They _weren’t_ disappearing, of course — it was hard to get that many people to be inconspicuous all at once even somewhere like a bus station.

They were short by two. Five’s guardian had pitched a fit about three consecutive numbers being in the same place at the same time and they’d taken off hours ago. (Hey, it didn’t make sense to him, but he wasn’t about to argue — she’d been a force of nature during the cleanup efforts, and you don’t mess with that.) The rest of them were winding down, grabbing a bite to eat. Dozing off, it looked like, in the case of Sam and the other aliens.

James and Rebecca were headed out next, back to the States with Fiona and her team, presumably to get their bounty hunter trouble straightened out. He was pretty sure Rebecca had forgotten to give his SIM card back on purpose, so he figured they’d be hearing from them sooner or later.

“Uh-oh,” Everett said. “Is it too late to drop out?”

Brian twisted around in his seat to see a tall man headed purposefully in their direction. Angelo snickered. “Let Paige do the talking,” he suggested.

“Why does it always have to be me?” she asked.

“I ask myself that every day,” the new arrival said, dropping into the seat next to Paige. “Hey kids. Miss me?”

Jubilee arrived with a sandwich just in time to get in on the group hug. “Rictor! How pissed is Scott?”

Rictor held his hand up at head height, then moved it up about three inches. “‘Bout here,” he said. “But Emma thinks you showed good initiative, and word is Jono’s planning to blow up a training room to deflect his wrath when you get back.”

His statement was met with nods and relieved sighs, which was — not actually the strangest thing he’d seen all day, or even in the last hour. Brian looked over at Dom with a wry grin. “You know, this isn’t really how I pictured retirement?”

“Come on, what’s not to love? Travel, culture...” Dom waved a hand around. “Meeting new people.”

“I’m going to remind you that you said that,” Brian told him. “When everyone laughs at us for moving in together in your mini-mutant safehouse.”

Dom just laughed and held up his water bottle for a toast. “Hey, somebody’s got to keep an eye on us. Might as well be each other, right?”


End file.
